Issue link: https://fhpublishing.uberflip.com/i/1045844
NETWORK / 25 / NOVEMBER 2018 l Taxing carbon upstream l Introducing a UK emissions trading scheme l Setting standards for carbon intensity l Taxing carbon at the point of consumption. One participant said they did not think the points "captured innovation funding" and ex- pressed concerns that this was a missing category. Another said they believed that the point about carbon taxation is an "important but not sufficient" condition to drive innovation. They added there was also an importance in areas where there are problems or gaps in carbon pricing, how to look at it in a more coherent way to get a better signal across the economy. A key topic of the a ernoon was changes to behaviour. Price, one delegate argued, is one of several mechanisms to achieve decarbonisation. Behaviour change is another such mechanism. They cited the example of the plastics debate which has completely changed not just through issues surrounding price, but though alignment of different meas - ures. "That would be a really important criteria for looking at how you assess the different options", they said. Discussing prices is almost missing the point, one attendee warned. They added the most successful UK decarbonisation policies "did not involve the of - ficial setting of prices". As the roundtable drew to a close, delegates were asked to summarise one thing they thought needed to be done within the next year in order to achieve succinct decarbonisa - tion incentives in all sectors. One participant proposed the Industrial Strategy should be used as a vehicle to engage with a broader swathe of business sectors while another suggested an economy-wide approach needs to be engaged. Another wanted to see the UK work with other countries, with climate being a world issue. Views from the speakers: "I think we need to establish a clear post Brexit baseline for carbon pricing and make sure we maintain strong cross-party agreement on the need to tackle climate change." Andy Limbrick, environmental consultant at Energy UK. "Whole systems can sound abstract and long term - if you want to develop a market, and want to innovate and sell hybrid heat pumps, then your market is going to be affected by the imbalance between gas electricity prices that we have now. Taxing gas when people haven't got an alternative is a problem, but the alternative will not emerge unless something is done about the framework of incentives." George Day, head of markets, policy and regulation, Energy Systems Catapult. "The system of long-term contracts for difference we introduced in the power sector has helped reduce the costs of decarbonisation by providing greater certainty for investors and thereby reducing the costs of capital. Theoretically, the government could increase carbon taxes to achieve the same end result, but investors know that tax levels can be changed each year in the Budget. Grandfathered private law contracts tie governments' hands and could prove a useful tool as we seek to decarbonise the heat and transport sectors." Simon Virley, partner and head of energy at KPMG and former director general for energy at DECC. "I'd like to see increased focus on how we can use cheap renewables to accelerate the electrification of the transport and heat sectors during the 2020s, and not just wait until the 2030s and 2040s. What are the mechanisms by which we can pull that through?" David Joffe, acting head of car- bon budgets at the Committee for Climate Change. "You can learn from Australia on what not to do. What political instability does to carbon pricing where they had a plan for ETS, then they had a tax, then they withdrew the tax all in the space of a few years. It is an interesting case study to look at." Matt Rooney, engineering policy adviser at the Institution of Mechanical Engineers. In association with